Hybrid Runaway

Double sestina with 4 extra stanzas made up of the first and last lines in each previous stanza. Honestly, I'm not very happy with this.

And God came down from heaven to bury the ecstasy

Of these people who took the pieces off the chessboard

Of a checkered flag dead-racing with the wind

The windows of shattered people with shutters for arms

The roofs of tombstones rotting sarcophagi of roots

The anchor of their hulking hollow hearts

 

Swallowing the secondhand fumes of ailing steampunk hearts

Chasing the roach roosting in the throat of ecstasy

Zebras crisscross-walkways to the jazz of a chessboard

Cold fingers kiss the cello’s melancholy wind

Bellowing emeralds belladonna polyphonic arms

The angel-dust of stars taking the night sky for roots

 

And the neon phoenix of polygamy took roots

In the nestled ribcage a straitjacket tongue-tied laced by a knotted heart

And the apple of my eye called man fell far from the tree of ecstasy

The hurricane’s blinked telescope tears of varicose skies of chessboards

And left whispers on the wind

Like the arms of an electric chair

 

Sitting with his morning coffee in a battered wheelchair

My paraplegic father watches over the flock of sheep who pulled wool over their eyes taking root

I do not have the strength to give you freedom in your heart

I do not understand the joys of life, or ecstasy

I do not share my daydreams with a dreamer who keeps me in check on this board

If only you could feel the flutter of butterflies and stutter of hummingbirds on the wind

 

I turn my back to the sun, and sprawl out my feeble branches to the wind

I watch the wheelchair of the sun father the stars into pinpricks on his body, this wheelchair

Taking root in the tallest of mountains, I will find a different route

Through the chambers twists and turns of the circulatory civilization of your broken pavement heart

Of broken records of hecatomb beckoning requiem to the sepulchre of speckled ecstasy

Heaven is a cross, the tables turned like a switchboard

 

He is the operator, the ventriloquist, the maestro, the conductor of this switchboard

Don’t you see the wind part like a wildflower’s petals? He is on the wind!

He is every mildew stain on my boots, the legs of every chair

I promise you, he is waiting on some highway to hitchhike with you to another route

He would never drive past and leave but dust in the wake of your heart

He will play your old piano body like every note you’ll leave behind is ecstasy

 

In a 1940 chevy, somewhere, some world, some decade away

The road will be forevermore, as barren of tracks as the dark side of the moon

As the curved saxophone of your spine slowly unbent the hands of the clock into a symphony

Slowly stretching into the music that this deaf, horrible world could never hear

And all the instruments of this rusted machine will be beautifully greased, new

This hybrid of then, this foundation to climb higher than an octave

 

Building castles in the air with the sound of the rolling stones’ octave

I base my foundation on all that you’ve known worn away

But I’d rather walk my own path at the fork in the road on a sundried moon

I’d rather call a spade a spade than learn to fold, bloom into symphony

To be the only hum amongst the silence this still picture will hear

The clanging gears of the world anew

 

The column of northern lights holding down the world from flipping anew

The choir of grapevines in the ivory nihilism of the dividing silence hostage

While the skyscraper shark teeth smiled wasted away

Biting into the dark, a crescent moon

And the scattered rain a percussion of a staccato symphony

The kind that only the clouds could hear

 

There is nothing but darkness and silence in this still world, but here

Under the skin of the city grunge anew

The opera of a lopsided smile behind the softly rocking coffin

We part our praying hands and come away

From the brightness to the gray, a fallen titan in the grave, the covered moon

A dark soul in a symphony of lights, the encore of a symphony

 

For what is a heartbeat without rhythm? A lonesome symphony

The schism to be here like the branches of the Titanic ripped from the trunk, here

The hulk of a wreck anew

The leftover clover of nocturne’s octave

I am a runaway

A train that left the station in the noon of the juniper January moon

 

The eclipse of a grandfather clock swaying back and forth in angry tides of a cruel moon

The lapse of some godslayer who could wear the crown of a symphony

Here

Anew

In the octave

Runaway

 

 

And God came down from heaven to bury the ecstasy

In a 1940 chevy, somewhere, some world, some decade away

Swallowing the secondhand fumes of ailing steampunk hearts

Building castles in the air with the sound of the rolling stones’ octave

And the neon phoenix of polygamy took roots

The column of northern lights holding down the world from flipping anew

 

Sitting with his morning coffee in a battered wheelchair

There is nothing but darkness and silence in this still world, but here

I turn my back to the sun, and sprawl out my feeble branches to the wind

For what is a heartbeat without rhythm? A lonesome symphony

He is the operator, the ventriloquist, the maestro, the conductor of this switchboard

The eclipse of a grandfather clock swaying back and forth in angry tides of a cruel moon

 

The anchor of their hulking hollow hearts

This hybrid of then, this foundation to climb higher than an octave

The angel-dust of stars taking the night sky for roots

The clanging gears of the world anew

Like the arms of an electric chair

The kind that only the clouds could hear

 

If only you could feel the flutter of butterflies and stutter of hummingbirds on the wind

A dark soul in a symphony of lights, the encore of a symphony

Heaven is a cross, the tables turned like a switchboard

A train that left the station of the moon

He will play your old piano body like every note you’ll leave behind is ecstasy

Runaway

 

 

 

 

 

 

Author's Note

I promise I read every single review, and I generally will reply to them. I look forward to my next review, because it helps me learn. Even if it's just one word, I promise, I will be happy to hear anything you feel needs sharing. Whenever you write on my shortcomings or breakthroughs, or the themes of my poems, or share ideas and friendly criticism, it decides my next poem to an extent. I will listen, learn and be thankful. And 99% of the time, you'll get a reply unless you're trolling me.